


In The Alley

by IronAutumn



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aliens, Cannibalism, Eventual Romance, F/M, First Meetings, Future, Gen, Original Fiction, Science Fiction, Vore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 00:28:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14320455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IronAutumn/pseuds/IronAutumn
Summary: In the not-too-distant future,  aliens have become a common sight on Earth. Humanity has made allies of every shape and size, but perhaps none are so peculiar- or mysterious- as the shape-shifting Orare. An isolated race of wanderers, the Orare have kept mostly to themselves after an unfortunate misunderstanding involving one of their most alien attributes, and none have actually traveled to Earth- until now.





	In The Alley

**Author's Note:**

> This is the preview of an original story I'm working on called Jake In The City!

“Look, I know this probably seems a bit out of the blue, but…”

Matilda swallowed a lump of nothing caught in her throat. Her cheeks already felt like they were on fire.

“Would you... be interested in eating me?”

**_Several weeks earlier…_ **

Starberd City’s westside was usually a beautiful thing to behold at night. Even with the lingering danger of petty alleyway thieves and interstellar menagerie traffickers, the sight of all those neon signs flickering across the inky blue sky was one of those things that never got old. The smell of the street vendors always lingered long after the last stalls had closed, and on nights like this, Matilda often closed her eyes to try and picture what kind of food had passed between the hands of customer and salesperson.

...of course, tonight, all she smelled was wet dirt.

 _Aaaand there’s the rain,_ she thought with a grimace as the first telltale droplets smacked her on the forehead. Matilda sighed, abandoning her spot outside the closed fried chicken joint to duck under a sign advertising 24-Hour Gambling. Within moments, the rain was coming down in sheets, turning all the surrounding neon signs into dull blobs of color. Matilda watched as the stragglers left behind dashed every which way until the street was practically empty.

A speck of light in the sky managed to catch Matilda’s eye through the downpour. She watched as it slowed down, descending to vanish among the swarm of similar lights dotting the roof of the massive building in the distance that took up almost the entirety of the east horizon.

 _Well_ , she thought, _at this point “building” might be an understatement._ Over the past five years, the influx of interstellar newcomers had led to the Starberd Gyroport undergoing several expansions. At this point the gyroport was practically big enough to count for a whole city on its own right, and it made Starberd City one of the most popular entry ports for new terracitizens in the country, if not the entire world.

Unfortunately, Earth’s laws had yet to catch up to the progress of its port cities. The process of terracitizenship was still a bureaucratic nightmare that nobody in the government seemed to think needed fixing, leading Earth to be embarrassingly far behind its peers in the MW Alliance. Many interstellars had been forced to turn to forgery and unsafe measures to get to Earth, and a frankly depressing amount of people had learned to take advantage of this, creating “Terra Enforcer” rings dedicated to capturing and turning less-than-legal arrivals over to authorities- or worse, menageries.

Fortunately, there was also people like Matilda. She was a member of Earth For All, a relatively new agency dedicated to finding these arrivals before any lowlifes did. Instead of simply discarding the would-be terracitizens as criminals, Matilda’s agency found them and brought them into a “interstellar exchange student program,” enrolling them into what could best be described as a community college for the entire planet- and, more importantly, granting them temporary citizenship until all proper documentation could be completed.

Most people dismissed EFA as a bunch of bleeding-heart fools, but Matilda was proud to be an officer. They were making real change and doing good work- if only-just-barely-legal work, and only then just by a couple of bureautic loopholes and the influence of a few rich higher-ups. Matilda believed deeply in Earth For All’s cause and would do everything she could help it continue.

It sometimes led to her skulking around in dark alleyways on cold wet nights she could be spending safe and warm at home, but hey. It was all for the cause. 

For what must have been the fifteenth time in as many minutes, Matilda checked her jCom, raking over the profile she had been given to see if there had been any updates to the case. Unfortunately, it was still as vague as it had been at the start of the day:

 _Yesterday at 0700 hours, a pilot at the Starberd Gyroport put forward a report of an adult Orare individual’s arrival. The individual is thought to be somewhere in the city’s westside._  

Matilda’s eyes lingered on the screen a moment. The light of the neon sign humming above her head made the word _Orare_ seem to glow pink.

The Orare. A highly unusual species with no home planet- at least, no home planet anywhere near this galaxy. They were a mostly nomadic people that tended to keep to themselves in their massive traveling ships, partially because of a history of isolation, but also in part due to some of their more unusual quirks.

Despite the vast array of species that lived in the galaxy, there tended to be a few fixed similarities- such as a set, carbon-based form. No matter their shape or size, interstellar visitors tended to all have the same base components, and, at the very least, tended to not change their form after hitting adulthood. But the Orare didn’t seem to possess these same base components, nor did they have a single fixed size or shape, and they certainly didn’t mind changing their form as they pleased.

The Orare, in their natural state, were a plasma-based lifeform, and were actually closer to jellyfish than humans when it came to DNA- or, to put it in a less-scholarly way: they were a sort of “slime” alien. In order to communicate and coexist among other species, the Orare sampled the genetic material of other individuals and reformed their bodies based on that DNA. It was incredibly fascinating, and the MW Alliance was practically drooling to learn more about the Orare’s physiology, along with their customs, and technology, and…

...unfortunately, it seemed like the Orare prefered keeping to themselves. A major factor in this was due to the events of one of the very First Contact meetings between the Orare and representatives of the MW Alliance- specifically, a very unfortunate cultural misunderstanding that occurred when the President of the Moon went to greet an ill-informed Orare diplomat, and was promptly eaten alive.

Rather, _apparently_ eaten alive. As this was back when very little was known about the Orare, no one could have realized that one of the major ways the race processed information was by taking new objects into one of their stomach cavities. What was seen by the Orare as mundane as a human examining something with their fingertips was seen by everyone else present as an assassination-slash-declaration-of-war.

To put it lightly, there had been quite a bit of commotion afterwards, and even when the confusion had been smoothed over and the President had been recovered (utterly bemused but completely unharmed), the uneasiness never quite died. Perhaps realizing their customs were a little more alien than what the people of the MW Alliance were used to, the Orare kept to their ships and un-rooted lifestyle, very rarely interacting with other races. It was very uncommon for any Orare citizens to settle on non-Orarian planets, colonies or stations, and at this point in time, none were recorded ever coming to Earth.

At least, until now.

Matilda frowned, clutching her jacket a little closer against herself against the chill of the rain. “An adult.” That was literally all they had to go on. This Orare could be a huge help in repairing relationships between their race with the rest of the alliance. Simultaneously, being the only member of a highly mysterious species on the planet meant this individual was immediately an inconceivably massive target for Terra Enforcers. Finding this person was probably the most important task Matilda had ever been a part of with the EFA, both for their sake and the sake of the galaxy’s future, and nobody had any idea of where to start.

 _Other than wandering the Westside like a lost chicken_ , Matilda thought with a sigh.

She x-ed out of the profile, using a gloved finger to switch deftly to the jCom’s internet browser and swiftly launching a search for “Orare.” Nothing helpful, nothing even relatively new- except for an article that seemed only a couple of hours old. Within seconds, however, Matilda realized there wasn’t anything of importance here- it was just one of those clickbait pieces that was simply an amusing collection of animated GIFs with silly captions.

_tfw ur at the first contact meeting and the orare ambassador say u looking like a snack_

The caption sat under a GIF of a little cartoon character with a nervous expression, dripping with exaggerated sweat. Despite Matilda’s exasperation, she couldn’t help a small snicker. At least the pun was cute. She scrolled a little further, hitting the comment section.

 

 **Comment 1:** _the orare one, lol. nervous sweating or horny sweating_

 **Reply 1:** _O_O wtf do you mean horny sweating_

 **Reply 2:** _aljhd;;kfhsklsfhfdsdi NOBODY TELL THEM ABOUT VORE_

 

Matilda’s jCom slipped from her fingers, and she snapped from 0 to about 97 mph to keep it from falling. The device bounced between her hands before she jerked her entire upper body to catch it, nervously darting glances around her, making sure nobody was around to see the screen. She x-ed out of the article, cheeks suddenly hot enough to mask the chill of the night.

Matilda ran her fingers through her hair, clearing her throat. She didn’t even know why she got so flustered like that- she wasn’t even looking at anything suspect. Even if someone were to have gotten the wrong idea, it was easy enough to explain- it’s not like she was-

It was just a natural part of working with interstellar species, getting curious about their quirks- their customs. And very few things were known about the Orare, and tons of people wanted to know more about their ability to control their own digestion process, and their ability to apparently swallow anything.

 _It must be strange_ , Matilda mused, _being inside another creature but being completely safe._ And it was one of their customs upon meeting new people, and of course Matilda of all people knew of the importance of being open-minded with people she met on this job-

It wasn’t like the Orare individual would ask her to do that, upon meeting her, of course, but- if they did, and if it could help them, and if it could help them calm down, if it could be helpful for the assignment, it’s not like she would refuse…

…

“Hey lady.”

Matilda jumped, instantly hiding her jCom’s screen against her chest. “I-!”

She looked up.

Way up.

Matilda was, by all standards, small. She was a paltry five foot one, and rather thin to boot, and with her short, slightly-curled brown hair and big eyes, she often drew comparisons to a mouse. But even if she hadn’t been as small as she was, she would have still had to tilt her head as far as back as she could manage to look at the source of the voice: an irritated looking Riapod, a member of a species remarkably similar to a common house centipede, if centipedes could rear back like cobras, and if centipedes were about the size of a large thoroughbred horse.

“Um... yes?”

A sigh like a wheezy accordion rose out of the Riapod’s throat. “I’d like to get into the casino?”

“Oh. OH.” Matilda jerked her head back to look over her shoulder, seeing that, yes, she was indeed leaning against the door. She blushed again. “I- yes, sorry- sorry about that.” She scooted out of the stranger’s path, backing away further even as the sound of skittering legs disappeared behind the door. She hadn’t even realized she had been blocking the way.

Not knowing what else to do, Matilda kept walking. The rain had weakened to a light drizzle, which wasn’t too unpleasant. Her skin quickly became slick, but she barely paid it any mind. If anything, the water was good for chilling her warm cheeks. 

Still, it wasn’t long before she became frustrated once more. Realizing the sidewalk puddles were getting deeper and harder to avoid, she slowed to a halt, pausing on the edge of a dark alleyway. Where was she supposed to go from here?

“...here’d... go?”

She could try talking to people for info, but she highly doubted that would work. Even if there was anyone who knew where this Orare was, it wasn’t likely they were standing around in this rain. She hadn’t seen anyone else in ages, other than that patron at the casino and…

“... on, we can _not_ afford to fuck this one up.”

Matilda blinked, squinting into the depths of the alley. She could just make out the shapes of two people in the dark.

“The first of its kind? On the entire planet? Can YOU afford to say no to that kind of money?”

 _Wait…_ Matilda’s eyes widened.

“I’m not saying NO, I’m just saying I’m having some trouble keeping track of the fucking SHAPESHIFTER.”

_No!_

As slowly and as carefully as she could manage, Matilda entered the alley. Making sure to hug the wall tightly, she managed to make it behind a dumpster close to the conversation.

“It’s not gonna be changing on the fly, that’s not how it works-”

“How do you know that? What do you know about these guys?”

Matilda leaned towards the edge of the dumpster, still making sure to move as slow as she could. There were two of them, both tall men with unremarkable clothes- apart from a symbol she knew quite well by now on the back of one of their hoodies.

Terra Enforcers.

“Sebastian told me. He knows his shit.” A chill went down Matilda’s spine. She knew Sebastian well by now, too- an interstellar trafficker infamous enough to go by only one name. “It only changes when it finds new things to imitate, and it’s not like there’s anyone else stupid enough to be out on a night like tonight.”

From her vantage point, Matilda could make out one of the Enforcers take out a jCom, fiddling with a switchblade nervously in the other hand. “Shit. Speak of the devil.” Against the blue glow of his jCom, Matilda could easily see the man’s eyebrows furrowed together as he snapped the knife shut. “Change of plans. He’s leaving for the Jupiter Base tomorrow.”

The other one sputtered. “Tomorrow?! What happened to Tuesday?”

“It sounds like the feds are closing in on him. He’s got an in with a delivery gyroplane service that leaves from Port Town, so we’ll need to move the meeting place there, in the morning.”

“So that’s another fucking hour of driving. Perfect. And that’s IF we find this thing.”

“That’s WHEN we find this thing, you mean. It’s time to break out the big guns.”

“What, you mean that tracker thing? You said it’s shit in the rain.”

 _Tracker thing?_ Matilda placed a hand on the edge of the dumpster, trying to lean in for a better look as the men leaned over the open jCom.

“It’s shit, yeah, but it functions. It just takes forever to get a signal… but it looks like it’s finally picking up something.”

“God, come on…”

“Be patient, dipshit… look, there!”

“That light- how far away is that?”

“Fuck- if that’s us, here, then it’s not too far aw-”

It happened in a flash. As Matilda leaned forward, her nerves made her forget her caution- and her leather gloves. Without warning, her hand suddenly shot out against the rain-slick surface of the dumpster. Her balance gone, she toppled, hitting the ground with most of her weight on her wrist, crying out from the pain and shock of the fall.

“Ah-!”

She clamped her mouth shut, far too late. The men were looking straight at her.

“Hey- you! Don’t you fucking move!”

Matilda tried with all her might to push herself off the ground and take off, but the throbbing pain in her wrist slowed her down. Within seconds the men were on her, rough hands yanking her out of the dirt like she weighed nothing. “Let me go-!” Another hand clamped over her mouth, and Matilda felt herself being dragged into the shadows of the alley.

“Fuck, fuck-”

“Is it him? The Orare?”

“No,” and the man’s tone made Matilda feel like her veins were filled with shards of glass. The man yanked her against his front, one hand crushing her throat, the other going for his pants pocket. “I recognize that jacket. She’s a EFA bitch.”

“Fucking-!”

“It’s fine-”

The man pulled out his knife.

“-I’ll take care of her.”

Matilda used all her might to drop to the ground, landing on bent knees, jamming her elbow into the man’s stomach.

She felt him choke, coughing against her hair, and she used the precious seconds granted to her to grab his knife, and she turned, swinging wildly-

And everything stopped.

It felt like time had froze. Matilda watched as the man’s hands went to his throat, his eyes wide but strangely calm as he watched the blood seeping through his fingers. His lips moved, like he was trying to say something, and the last thing Matilda saw on his face was confusion before he staggered backwards, hitting the wall and sinking to the floor, collapsing over himself. 

The switchblade fell from Matilda’s fingers, her other hand coming to clamp over her open mouth. Her shock was enough to freeze her still for several seconds.

Several seconds she didn’t have.

A crunch of gravel was all the warning she got. She whipped around as the other man rushed her, pushing her foot against the ground in a vain attempt to dodge his knife-

Matilda cried out. The blade sliced between the open flaps of her leather jacket, easily cutting through her sweater and tearing a gash under her ribcage. The pain brought her to her knees, and then to the ground, and a sudden kick to her torso sent her crashing against the dumpster with a metallic thud.

Head spinning, she saw the knife she had dropped, summoning all her effort to lunge, to grab for it-

A hard shoe dropped on her fingers. Matilda’s lungs, already raw from adrenaline, burned as she let out a weak scream of pain.

“You’re going to regret that,” the man spat. His eyes were cold as he flipped his knife to fit in the palm of his hand.

Matilda looked up, helpless, as the Enforcer regarded her like dirt on his shoe. Every heartbeat sent a new wave of pain through her body, and the freezing rain hit her skin like glass. The man towered over her, seemingly huge, and in Matilda’s hazy eyes, the darkness of the alleyway seemed to seep off him, as if it were a part of him.

_I’m about to die._

And he lunged.

And the darkness lunged.

“The fuck?!” The man sputtered. Between the slow spinning of her head and the bad light of the alley, it was hard for Matilda to make out exactly what was happening, but- something had a hold of the man. Something mostly obscured by darkness, but something with arms. Arms strong enough to lift the man like he was a candy bar.

“Let go- I said let go of me! Don’t fucking mess with me!!!” The man screamed, writhing, as the thing pulled him further into the darkness, until the shadows had consumed the top half of his body. “I’m armed! I’m with Sebastian! Don’t you mess-”

And his voice trailed off, and for a moment, all Matilda could see was his lower half, his legs suddenly still-

And suddenly kicking, flailing, thrashing-

_“WHAT THE FUCK?!!”_

**CRUUUUNCH.**

And his legs went limp.

Matilda stared, frozen, as the man’s legs simply seemed to hang there for a few moments. Then, with one single, fluid movement, they were yanked into the shadows without a trace.

From the darkness, Matilda heard a loud gulp.

Everything was quiet, with nothing but the patter of rain. Matilda simply sat there, blinking as her vision straightened out, numb to the cold and pains that racked her body.

And eventually, the darkness shifted.

There was the sound of shuffling, and out from the shadows came the largest, tallest man Matilda had ever seen. He couldn’t have been any less than seven feet tall and was built thickly all over, with wide shoulders, strong arms, and long, sturdy legs. His tight black sweater and dark jeans showed that his muscles weren’t defined like those of a linebacker or bodybuilder- in fact, he was clearly a pudgy man- but that didn’t take away from the overwhelming sense of strength the stranger extruded.

And yet, that strength did not distract Matilda from his face. The stranger had dark, intense eyes that were shadowed by heavy eyelids and dark, thick eyebrows, giving him a strangely gentle, sleepy look. This was furthered by his dark, curly hair that hung to his chin. Some would say a man shouldn’t let his hair get that long, but to Matilda, the length seemed to suit the stranger. To Matilda, the way the stranger blinked slowly, as if he was rousing from sleep, was absolutely adorable- and the way he gently licked his lips as he wiped the corner of his mouth with a large hand was strangely attractive.

She watched as his hand dropped to absentmindedly pat his belly- and Matilda was sent hurtling back to Earth. As large as he was, as thickly built as she could clearly tell he was from his soft face and wide build, she knew that his stomach would not have been that huge. It bulged out, completely out of proportion to the rest of the man’s body. It was _massive_ , impossibly so- almost large enough for another man’s body to rest in.

_...no, definitely large enough._

The man’s eyes lifted to meet Matilda’s. Her throat went dry.

Slowly, he approached her, and Matilda stiffened, attempting to stand up, only to feel a stab of pain in her gut. In all the commotion and the haze of adrenaline, she had forgotten the wound on her stomach, and it was now more than happy to remind her of its existence. She hissed, clutching herself, and before she knew it the stranger was over her.

A jolt of fear went through Matilda as he squatted, and through her terror she noted that even like this he was still a good deal taller than her. He seemed to regard her for a moment, before reaching out one of his massive hands towards her. Matilda tried to cry out, but it was like her body was frozen. All she could do was stare, something deep within her burning at the sight of the stranger’s mouth opening, revealing a perfect wall of sharp, lupine teeth, and as it opened wider she could make out a second row behind the first, like a shark, and as it opened further…

“Sorry, this’ll probably feel strange.”

“...Huh?”

It took Matilda a moment to register that the stranger had placed his palm flat against her wound. She jerked her head down to look, realizing with dizzy disbelief that his hand was almost wide enough to span the width of her waist. There was a strange tingle there, hot and wet, but not unpleasant. It felt like a bit like an electric blanket covered in maple syrup.

After a few seconds, he lifted his hand away to reveal that the cut had been replaced with a massive, half-healed scab, as if a few days had gone by.

Matilda gaped at her stomach, then looked up to meet the stranger’s gaze again. “I- you- th-” Her head was spinning again- she had no idea where to even start. “I- _thank you_.”

“Oh- uh, it’s no trouble,” he said. Oddly enough, more than anything, he looked a little embarrassed. “It was essentially my fault that those men were around here anyways, so…” In a startlingly human gesture, he looked down as he scratched his cheek. “I’m, uh, sorry you had to… deal with them.”

“It’s fi- uh.” Matilda took a deep breath, straightening up as she collected herself. “You… you’re an Orare, aren’t you?”

He gave her an inscrutable look. “...I am, yes.”

“I… I was looking for you.” A shadow crossed his face. “I-I mean, not like those men- I’m with EFA. We want to help you.”

His eyes softened, just a bit. “Hm. 

“I… I’d like to talk with you a b… a bit…” For what felt like the fifth time that night, Matilda made an attempt at standing, only to find her knees trembling. “Ah…”

“You seem a bit shaken.” He offered the same hand he had used to heal her. “And you’d probably prefer to get out of this rain. The place I’m staying at isn’t far away… if you want to talk, we could go there.” Matilda watched him shoot a look at the spot where the other man’s body still laid. “Either way, we should probably get away from here.”

“T-that sounds fine.” Matilda took his hand, standing along with him and trying not to think about how his stomach jutted out so far it nearly brushed her chest, or how it was overwhelmingly obvious how much taller than her he was when they stood. She did allow herself to think about how small her hand was in his. “Um… I’m Matilda, by the way. Matilda Martinez.”

“I’m Jake.”

“...Jake?”

He looked down at her, tilting his head and cocking an eyebrow. “Is there a problem?”

“N-no, of course not.”

Matilda didn’t know exactly what she had been expecting, but it definitely wasn’t _Jake_.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to find out more about Jake In The City, or if you just want to shoot me a friendly hello, you can find me at https://twitter.com/autumnisiron!


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